Review by ab2020 -- Cooperative Lives by Patrick Finegan
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ab2020
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Review by ab2020 -- Cooperative Lives by Patrick Finegan
[Following is a volunteer review of "Cooperative Lives" by Patrick Finegan.]
3 out of 4 stars
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Patrick Finegan is a New York City-based lawyer, financier, and consultant. In 2013, he finished the first draft of what later became his debut novel, Cooperative Lives. According to the author’s note at the end of the book, he let the draft sit on his hard drive for nearly seven years but ultimately returned to it because he had promised himself that he would publish it before he turned sixty. The result of all those years of writing, waiting, and revising is a challenging and unusual novel about privilege, secrecy, and how much—or how little—we really know about our neighbors.
The plot of Cooperative Lives includes a very large cast of characters. These characters include the residents and staff of an elite New York City residential community. The residents include lawyers, financiers, doctors, and other high-level figures, so you would think that they all know each other and that their community is a vibrant and cultured one. However, the truth is more complex. The book details a series of unusual events that take place within the co-op, including one incident when a bus side-swipes a resident and another incident when a family is found to have harbored a fugitive in their apartment.
Cooperative Lives is very much a character-driven book. While I would not describe the plot as boring, the plot is definitely not the most important part of the book. Finegan’s writing comes alive in the dialogue that takes place between characters and in the descriptions of the characters' thoughts and actions. The story is fundamentally a narrative about a community and the challenges that it faces. The plot does have climactic points, but it does not revolve around one specific problem or event.
The first thing I noticed about the book is how well-organized it is. Finegan is a writer of meticulous detail. He provides a helpful list of characters at the beginning of the book. He also constructs an explicit and easy-to-follow timeline; each chapter is labeled with the date on which the events within it take place. The story consists primarily of three separate timelines—“2 years ago”, “six months ago”, and the “present day”, with the present day being the year 2012—and each chapter is marked with the correct timeline. Thus, even though Cooperative Lives is long novel (nearly 500 pages), it is not a confusing one.
The book contains few typographical errors, and Finegan’s prose is both elegant and intelligent. He is highly skillful in describing everything from silk curtains to the legal profession. Though I do not feel very strongly about this book, I appreciate the author’s detailed and spirited exploration of the complex relationships between neighbors. This book is certainly not a masterpiece, but I do not have any major complaints about it, either. I rate Cooperative Lives 3 out of 4 stars, and I would recommend it to readers who are eager to read something unusual.
******
Cooperative Lives
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
3 out of 4 stars
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Patrick Finegan is a New York City-based lawyer, financier, and consultant. In 2013, he finished the first draft of what later became his debut novel, Cooperative Lives. According to the author’s note at the end of the book, he let the draft sit on his hard drive for nearly seven years but ultimately returned to it because he had promised himself that he would publish it before he turned sixty. The result of all those years of writing, waiting, and revising is a challenging and unusual novel about privilege, secrecy, and how much—or how little—we really know about our neighbors.
The plot of Cooperative Lives includes a very large cast of characters. These characters include the residents and staff of an elite New York City residential community. The residents include lawyers, financiers, doctors, and other high-level figures, so you would think that they all know each other and that their community is a vibrant and cultured one. However, the truth is more complex. The book details a series of unusual events that take place within the co-op, including one incident when a bus side-swipes a resident and another incident when a family is found to have harbored a fugitive in their apartment.
Cooperative Lives is very much a character-driven book. While I would not describe the plot as boring, the plot is definitely not the most important part of the book. Finegan’s writing comes alive in the dialogue that takes place between characters and in the descriptions of the characters' thoughts and actions. The story is fundamentally a narrative about a community and the challenges that it faces. The plot does have climactic points, but it does not revolve around one specific problem or event.
The first thing I noticed about the book is how well-organized it is. Finegan is a writer of meticulous detail. He provides a helpful list of characters at the beginning of the book. He also constructs an explicit and easy-to-follow timeline; each chapter is labeled with the date on which the events within it take place. The story consists primarily of three separate timelines—“2 years ago”, “six months ago”, and the “present day”, with the present day being the year 2012—and each chapter is marked with the correct timeline. Thus, even though Cooperative Lives is long novel (nearly 500 pages), it is not a confusing one.
The book contains few typographical errors, and Finegan’s prose is both elegant and intelligent. He is highly skillful in describing everything from silk curtains to the legal profession. Though I do not feel very strongly about this book, I appreciate the author’s detailed and spirited exploration of the complex relationships between neighbors. This book is certainly not a masterpiece, but I do not have any major complaints about it, either. I rate Cooperative Lives 3 out of 4 stars, and I would recommend it to readers who are eager to read something unusual.
******
Cooperative Lives
View: on Bookshelves | on Amazon
Latest Review: The Altitude Journals by David J Mauro
